


Blanket Burrito

by All_I_need



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8128871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_I_need/pseuds/All_I_need
Summary: John, a blanket-wrapped burrito of laughing sunshine in a ratty t-shirt, notices. Of all the moments for him to be observant, this is the one he chooses.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that one gif of Martin Freeman from Whiskey Tango Foxtrott. I just thought: what if Sherlock were to see John like that?

John looks too soft.

  
Sherlock has been standing in the middle of John's bedroom for several minutes now, silently staring, unable to tear his gaze away. He meant to wake him, drag him off to St. Bart's so they can have a look at the hands Molly texted him about yesterday, but then he walked into John's bedroom and all his plans were derailed.

  
Because John is asleep, or perhaps dozing, snuggled into the pillow and covers, a patch of sunlight falling onto the bed and making his skin glow. He looks like an extension of a sunbeam himself and Sherlock is overcome with the urge to reach out to see if his fingers will pass right through him. He thinks they might. He thinks John looks ethereal.

  
He thinks he needs to get out of here, fast, before-

  
John opens his eyes, hums, stretches lazily and murmurs 'Good morning'.

  
Warmth erupts in his chest like a gentle volcano, the heat spilling up and up and up, rising up his neck and towards his face, unstoppable. Soon the explosion (all this sentiment) will be visible for miles and miles, making humans gape and point in amazement.

  
Sherlock is just about to turn around and leave, quickly, before he does or says something stupid. In his haste, he runs into a wall. And John... the sound of husky laughter makes him turn and the sight of John doubled over, all stubbled jaw and dancing eyes and sleep-warm skin is too much and Sherlock is lost, melts like butter in the sun that is John Watson's joy. Worse, he knows it's written all over his face, too.

  
A thousand tiny changes to his facial muscles, none of them ordered by his conscious mind. He can feel his face soften, sentiment writing itself into the corners of his eyes, the turn of his nose, the tilt of his lips. He doesn't need a mirror to know what his face looks like, has felt these same changes happen too often, struggled to hide them away too many times to count. (He has counted them anyway.)

  
John, a blanket-wrapped burrito of laughing sunshine in a ratty t-shirt, notices. Of all the moments for him to be observant, this is the one he chooses.

  
An expert in sentiment, deducing Sherlock's hidden heart like Sherlock analyses dust under his microscope. He feels exposed, laid bare despite the suit covering his body. Everything that matters isn't covered by expensive fabric and John, half dressed and sleep-rumpled, sees more than Sherlock meant to show.

  
He thinks he should leave, walk away while John is still processing, still looking for further clues and finding them all in Sherlock's stupid, besotted face. Remove the evidence from sight, walk away, wait for John to come downstairs, pretend nothing out of the ordinary happened, pretend he's not in love. He has done a stellar job of it for years, it won't be difficult. A particularly unfeeling remark about someone will be all it takes to make John doubt the witness statement given by his own eyes, years of apparent lack of interest overwhelming the truth of too much sentiment and not enough ability to cope with it.

  
He thinks he should shuffle forward, just crawl into the bed and press his face into John's chest and _hide_ , soak up all the warmth and sunshine and joy and let John think what he will, let him hesitate and question and just breathe him in, not responding but answering all the same.

  
He does neither of these things.

  
He remains frozen to the spot, his mind still all tangled up in John's laughter.

  
The same laughter slowly trickles out of John's expression and Sherlock wants to reach out, gather it up with his hands like so much water lest it run out.

  
John's face goes soft in unexpected ways, the laugh still hidden in the twinkle of his eyes, but there's something else there now, too, something Sherlock doesn't dare look at for too long or think about too hard.

  
John, his face as unpredictably changeable as the stereotypical English weather, arranges his features into something that might be sorrow.

  
'Right' he says. Licks his lips. Sherlock closes his eyes too slowly to pass for a blink. It's too late now. He knows John, knows that 'right' is a precursor to 'Sherlock' and followed by a demand for him to explain himself/apologise/stop being an arse/clean away the body parts in the fridge. When John says 'right' in that tone of voice, he is like a dog with a bone and there is no escape. He will not relent until Sherlock caves. And Sherlock always caves in the end, his antisocial behaviour trumped by his need to make John happy in any way he can.

  
John does not disappoint.

  
The next word out of his mouth is 'Sherlock' and Sherlock idly, nervously, awards himself a point for another correct deduction.

  
But John would not be John if he was in any way predictable, and so his next words are 'Come here then.'

  
Sherlock does, pulled along like a puppet on strings, with John the puppet master and sentiment tugging at his limbs.

  
He comes to a halt with his shins brushing the frame of the bed, has to look straight down to take in John, who is squinting up at him against the morning sun, his hair sticking up in a way that makes Sherlock's fingers itch. He doesn't dare move a muscle, doesn't say anything. There is still a possibility of plausible deniability. He wouldn't know what to say anyways.

  
'Sit' John says. The word is half order, half request, his hand tapping the mattress is an invitation Sherlock doesn't know whether to accept or decline. Either option seems equally dangerous.

  
In the end, he sits, swayed by the sudden thought that his legs might not carry him for much longer if he has to stare at John while John continues to look like _that_. Like he belongs to lazy Sunday mornings in bed, the sun in his face and Sherlock's treacherous heart in his hands. Like Sherlock might have a place right there with him.

  
Perhaps it is that thought that makes him sit, after all. He has never been good at denying himself anything. Drugs, cigarettes, John. Addiction is the siren call Sherlock answers to, going from one thing to the other and always circling back once his supply runs out.

  
He never knew he could be addicted to another person, crave their mere presence at his side like he used to crave the cocaine in his blood.

  
And here they are, on a sunny Sunday morning with the hope for an endless supply of John shyly edging its way between them.

  
Sherlock couldn't turn away from that if someone were to hold a gun to his head. It occurs to him that he won't have to. John has demonstrated time and again that he will shoot anyone who dares to threaten Sherlock. Perhaps that in itself should give him a clue.

  
John is half sitting up now, the expression on his face one Sherlock has never seen directed at himself, like he's trying not to frighten him away. Doesn't John know that Sherlock would rather shoot himself in the kneecaps than run from him?

  
It seems impossible that John could somehow have missed that, missed it and still have noticed the look on Sherlock's face just now. It already feels like it was hours ago. He has no idea how much time has passed, how long they've been caught in this endless Sunday morning. Perhaps time, too, is frozen, caught between a gigantic leap forward and stopping entirely.

  
John sighs. 'Oh, Sherlock.'

  
Sherlock blinks at him, confused. This is the tone John uses when Sherlock has blatantly disregarded something as irrelevant that is important to everyone else. It's the tone that suggests missed social cues, ignored unspoken rules, a demonstration of Sherlock's tone-deafness in the field of interpersonal communication.

  
He can't for the life of him figure out what might have caused it this time. That's what John is there for, after all. And so, as he always does, as he has learned to do, Sherlock turns to him for help.

  
'Aren't you going to say anything?' John asks, endearingly oblivious to the merry-go-round of Sherlock's thoughts and his utter inability to form words when he can barely keep up with his own mind. Mutely, he shakes his head, slumps a bit even as his legs tense. If John tells him to go, he'll be out of the room in 0.8 seconds and out of the flat in 4.6. 10.3 if he stops to take his coat with him.

  
He's already calculating the likely cooling-off period John will require to calm down enough for them both to pretend nothing ever happened, wondering where he could find shelter for the night in the meantime. Better to prepare for the worst case scenario now, rather than be taken by surprise by-

  
-John's hand on his back.

  
Sherlock's thoughts screech to a halt, his breath snatched from him as the physical contact occupies all the space in his brain, easily trumping the need to breathe in favour of processing the toasty 38.4°C of John's hand after a night in a warm bed, the texture of Sherlock's own shirt pressed to his skin in an exact outline of John's hand, the closeness, the _Johnness_ of all of this.

  
'You're an idiot.' John tells him, the only person in the history of the known universe to look at Sherlock and make these words not an insult but to suffuse them with fondness.

  
Sherlock's mind searches for suitable replies and draws a blank, further evidence that John is correct in this.

  
'Okay', John says, clearing his throat in that way that suggests he has come to some sort of a decision. 'Since you're not going to talk, I will. And I'm telling you now that I don't want you-'

  
The world crashes down, the sun falls out of the sky, the universe explodes, Sherlock is-

  
'-to ever have to hide that look on your face again.'

  
-breathing, against all odds, and watching the universe reassemble itself and not understanding the solar system but still one hundred percent certain that John is at the centre of it.

  
'So how about we forget all about the hands Molly texted you about and you get out of that suit and into your pajamas and join me in here and you can look at me like that until you get bored.'

  
The sheer magnitude of the improbability of this event occurring is enough to shock Sherlock into speech and he hears himself say 'Forever then.'

  
He clamps his mouth shut but the words are out there now and there is no taking them back.

  
John smiles, looking like the incarnation of everything Sherlock never knew he wanted but now desperately needs for his own continued survival.

  
And John, perfect, unpredictable John, kisses the corner of his mouth and says 'Hurry.'

  
It's the weirdest possible word choice to ring in a lazy Sunday morning, but it works all the same.

  
Since nothing about their lives or their relationship has ever been normal, they make it a habit.

 

**The End.**


End file.
